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Scratch is a big deal

bryanbraun.com

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Re: Scratch is a big deal

#121

Post by bj-rn »

modernerd wrote: post #56

Is there a reason that visual programming languages haven’t taken off for professional programming? I know of several for specific fields (Dark for backends, TouchDesigner for live graphics/multimedia), but none that are more generalised, open, or in wide use. It feels like an underdeveloped area that’s ripe for exploration and experimentation.

> none that are more generalised

Do you know vvvv gamma? It's a visual programming environment for .Net. Its language (called VL) combines dataflow programming with features known from object-oriented and functional programming.

https://visualprogramming.net https://thegraybook.vvvv.org

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#123

Post by mattkevan »

tartoran wrote: post #97
HorizonXP wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some here? I’m about to get my 3 year old into Scratch, since it’s already on his RPi. I remember doing the exact same thing in grade school with Gorillas and QBASIC. I actually want to download it now and play it again.

I have a 4 year old and I find that he’s not ready to be exposed to computers let alone programming languages yet. There are so many things to learn at that age that sitting in front of a screen for too long may be a disadvantage. Im thinking a starting age is more like 6-8, of course depending on other factors as well. I find that 3-4 may be a good time to start reading though

Our (then) 4 year old got the hang of Scratch Jr on the iPad really quickly. It’s great and gets kids used to sequencing, basic logic, loops, control flow and more without needing to be a confident reader.

She loved, and still does love, drawing her own sprites and recording sound effects to create interactive stories.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#124

Post by AzzieElbab »

easrng wrote: post #87
djsrv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tick the checkbox next to the variable in the block palette. That creates a variable watcher on the stage. You can also right-click the watcher to change it to a large readout, displaying the variable contents within a minimal frame.

Also if you get Scratch Addons ( https://scratchaddons.com/ ) and enable the Debugger addon it adds a console and blocks to log to it.

Something as simple as this should not require add-ons. This isnt js and `leftPad` you know

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#125

Post by bakpakin »

I learned to program on scratch in the 6th grade when it was very new, circa 2008. In many ways, it is more real than other learning languages.

In retrospect, the smalltalk influence of scratch I think left such an impression on me that I continue to love dynamic, always live environments to this day. The broadcast system is surprisingly powerful and forward thinking. I do recall it being a bit difficult to build up your own abstractions, but such guardrails I think are useful for learning and I usedd Scratch before custom blocks were available.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#126

Post by ebresafegaga »

ModernMech wrote: post #21

Scratch is great, but the problem is: where do kids go after scratch? Often they are transitioned directly to professional-grade languages and developer tools, which has the effect of turning what was once fun to something scary and frustrating. Many kids stop their PL development right then and there, writing it off as something “not for me”. I find this sad, as it means a lot of people who might otherwise benefit f…

Something like https://www.pyret.org/index.html with https://dcic-world.org/ maybe

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#127

Post by philsnow »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #61
modernerd wrote: post #56

Is there a reason that visual programming languages haven’t taken off for professional programming? I know of several for specific fields (Dark for backends, TouchDesigner for live graphics/multimedia), but none that are more generalised, open, or in wide use. It feels like an underdeveloped area that’s ripe for exploration and experimentation.

I teach Scratch to kids professionally. I love it as a learning tool, but when I need to actually write Scratch code myself for whatever reason, I find the experience pretty aggravating. Finding the block I need from the big list and dragging it into place takes a lot more time than just typing the command. Scratch programs also become messy quickly as the complexity increases. Normal code is more compact and easier…

Normal code that's compact and easy to follow is usually that way because it was written by somebody with a lot of experience. I've seen plenty of shit-piles called "code".

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#128

Post by mod »

jawns wrote: post #2

One of my earliest memories of writing code was playing Gorillas, a QBASIC game, on my school's PC in the early 90s. My friends and I would tweak the source code to make the gravity stronger or weaker, or make other interesting mods to the projectiles. For me, it was a perfect introduction, because there was an already written, already playable program, and I could dive into the code little by little and explore. Scr…

GORILLA.BAS was my intro to programming, too!

In my 8th grade algebra class in a "portable."

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#130

Post by seldomI »

spankalee wrote: post #15

I like Scratch - my kid uses it and I worked briefly with the guy who made Blockly, the underlying visual programming toolkit - but the programming environment makes many things far too complicated with its singular focus on sprites. It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. My 7yo was making a number guessing game, and to display a two-digit number we had to make two sprites tha…

Shameless plug: we're running a Scratch-like site, but for terminal programs (among other runtimes). A number guessing game is one of our example programs. It's about 20 statement blocks: https://app.code-it-studio.de/project/303
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